PLANTS ADAPTED TO LAWN MOWING

      Dandelions and white clovers have much in common.  Both these adaptable, tough plant species are perennials originally from Eurasia, though today they are also abundant on many short-grass lawns in the eastern United States, adding much beauty to those human-made habitats.  Many lawns are golden with the abundance of dandelion flowers in April and white with white clover blossoms from mid-May into September, bringing much beauty and inspiration to many people.    

     Both types of plants have flower heads, each one with many tiny florets.  Both species provide food for certain kinds of wildlife on those lawns, which have limited food and cover for wildlife.  And both kinds of plants have adapted to regular lawn mowing, which gives them more land to thrive on, and allows them more sunlight, without the shading of tall grass and other plants.  

     Dandelion plants, by good fortune, adapted to regular mowing by growing blooms on very short stems, as well as long ones.  Flowers on long stems get cut off, but blooms on short ones remain intact and are, therefore, able to produce seeds.  Mower blades pass over short-stemmed flowers, leaving them unharmed.  Eventually, only dandelions that grow short blossom stems survive, reproduce and flourish on lawns.  That is evolution in action.       

     Dandelion flowers quickly go to seed in May.  Some of those seeds, each with a "fluffy", white parachute, sail on the wind, away from their parent plants, and colonize soil elsewhere.  But many seeds are eaten by mice and a variety of small, attractive, seed-eating birds during May.  Permanent resident northern cardinals, American goldfinches, house finches and song sparrows, and migrant, north-bound indigo buntings, chipping sparrows and rose-breasted grosbeaks consume dandelion seeds in May when few other seeds are available.  These birds add much beauty and interest to many lawns during that time.         White clover plants adapt to grass cutting by producing new flower heads after every mowing.  Clovers on short-grass lawns, therefore, bloom all summer.  And each floret on each flower head is loaded with nectar that is food for small butterflies, bumble bees, honey bees and other kinds of insects.

     Honey bees, which are also from Eurasia, benefit the most from white clover blossoms.  Hundreds of sterile, female worker bees gather nectar from white clover flowers through each summer.  Each worker visits several clover blooms until her special stomach is full of clover nectar.  Then she flies back to her colony in a tree hollow or a bee hive.              

     On the way to her colony, the bee's stomach converts the clover nectar to honey.  She enters her home and regurgitates the honey she's created into a six-sided, storage cell made of wax by other worker bees in her colony.  Then our worker goes out to collect more clover nectar to convert into honey.  

     And so the clover nectar gathering goes on all summer by many successive worker honey bees.  And all that clover nectar converted to honey is available simply by regularly mowing lawns all summer.   

     Many lawn owners appreciate the abundant beauties of dandelion and white clover blossoms on their lawns.  And they enjoy the beauties and intrigues of small birds eating dandelion seeds and insects visiting clover blooms to sip nectar.  All that adaptable and abundant life brings joy to many people right at home.          

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